


Fading Fast

by lost_spook



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: 500 prompts, Angst, Death, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 04:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5614348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It always hurts, or it ought to.  That’s the eternal problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fading Fast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for brunhilde_1013 in the [500 Prompts Meme](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/300554.html): 346 – The innocent can never last – Ruth Evershed (Spooks).

Harry couldn’t reach Ruth yet – he was dealing with Beth, currently cursing him for the belated arrival of any back up but he knew from experience, more likely cursing fate, life in general, herself, and the bastards who did this. He wasn’t one of them, not this time.

Ruth, though – he could see her behind Beth, sitting by the fallen young woman, hanging onto her hand, with a light in her eyes he couldn’t interpret.

“I didn’t know,” the young woman tried to say. “What he was – what it all meant – all of it. I didn’t know.”

Ruth only nodded. “Yes. I know. Ssh. You need to hold on.”

“It’s too late, isn’t it?”

Ruth didn’t let go. “Maybe,” she said, leaning nearer. “So just you hold onto me. I’ll be here.”

“It hurts.”

_It always hurts_ , thought Harry, from a distance, looking at Ruth rather than at the dying young woman. Or it ought to: it was only when it didn’t hurt that you had to start worrying.

“Hey,” said Beth, in front of him. “Harry, are you even listening?”

He gestured beyond her, and Beth turned, falling silent, but for one last expletive, this time almost inaudibly. _Yes, it still hurts_ , he thought again, observing Beth, and then: _Good_. He tried not to watch Ruth too obviously as his gaze inevitably strayed back to her, thinking she looked like some ancient priestess, officiating at the passing-over. Which was a funny image to come to mind: he was pretty sure she was C of E if anything.

 

When she walked over to him afterwards, he found himself searching for words again, the way he always seemed to with Ruth – only with Ruth.

“Here,” she said, suddenly, before he’d managed anything at all. “You’d better have this. It was in her pockets.”

He looked down at the paper now in his hands. “Ruth –”

“Don’t,” she said, glancing up quickly, her voice almost harsh. “Harry. Don’t. I did what I had to. You know that.”

Yes, he thought, and he knew, too, that she meant it both ways; both the unseen theft and the act of compassion. Innocence twisted back against itself, because that was how it went in their line of work.

“Time to go, then,” was all he said, but he put a hand to her arm briefly and got a small, tired smile in return. It was enough to make it worth his while in coming here.


End file.
